Covid-19 lockdown: No train home, migrant workers crammed in Chennai's halls

CHENNAI: “I am scared and want to go home," said Tanushree, a migrant worker who came to the city from Kerala to take a train to West Bengal. But she and her husband could not board the connecting train from MGR Central as by the time they arrived, all trains had been cancelled.
Now, Tanushree has a shelter but she is the only woman among 100 men in a community hall provided by the corporation.
As more workers arrived at the railway station looking for trains, the corporation and the labour department opened more shelters to house them till train services resume. On Monday, more workers landed at the Central station only to be turned away. And a few more reached on a Danapur-Bengaluru train in the afternoon.
From Sunday night, special vehicles were placed outside the station to receive and move stranded migrant workers. The aim was to offer them shelter rather than allowing them to sleep on the pavements and on the station campus, said an RPF official.
However, the shelters are just open halls where the workers sleep on bedsheets spread on the floor and use their bags as pillows. Similar was the scene at a community hall in Chintadripet.
"I’m more worried about my health than security. We were sent from Kerala because of the virus outbreak, but I feel people are not that serious here," Tanushree said.
Other workers at the shelter had similar concerns. "We need safety masks first," said Mahinder Chanda, one of the workers residing at the shelter. "There are only two bathrooms for 125 people. We hear that more will be moving in here in the coming days, they need to make adequate arrangements," he said.
Many worked in hotels, factories or at construction sites. Naseem, a worker from Odisha, went to the station on Monday morning but in vain. "I am unable to stay still at this time. I need to go home," he said.
Corporation officials said the shelters may allow adequate social distancing to prevent the spread of any infection.
"However, they are less crammed in a hall compared to a station. We are providing them hygienic food three times a day from Amma canteens," an official said.
Faced with a lockdown and such crisis, the corporation has also activated its disaster relief module from Sunday with top officials in charge of each zone. Every chief engineer and deputy commissioners are nodal officers for each zone and have to supervise disinfection in the area.